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How Responsible Is the Trumpian Mind-Set for Inciting Violence Against Rep. Omar and Muslims? Printer friendly page Print This
By Dallas Darling
Submitted by Author
Tuesday, Apr 16, 2019

In 2016, just as Donald Trump’s campaign was gaining traction, three men were arrested. The arrest’s followed a rash of mosque bombings and gunning down of an imam and his assistant as they walked home from the Al-Furqan Jame Mosque in Queens. Along with plotting to bomb a mosque and apartment complex because Muslims lived there, they had referred to Muslims as “cockroaches.” The plot was fortunately foiled. But others were not. Nor did Donald Trump or Fox News label them acts of far-right terrorism or change their violent rhetoric. They instead equated Islam with terrorism, called Muslim children “terrorists,” and declared immigrants an “invasion.”(1)

Consequently, one person can affect an entire country, especially when your name is Donald Trump and you are president. So can Fox News, which serves as his mouthpiece for millions of followers. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee and one of the first Muslim Congress women, found this out. After the president shared on social media a video comparing her to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and tweeted she was “the most dangerous anti-Semite we’ve seen,” authorities stopped another mass shooting. Even then, Alex Jones of Infowars charged her with wanting to establish her own Islamic caliphate in America.

Trumpian Mind-Set Profoundly American
Donald Trump, Fox News and Alex Jones are profoundly America. The reason is America was branded with racism, founded on slavery and genocide towards people of color. The recent plot to kill Rep. Omar was just another sign of a much deeper symptom of this. One that tells darker skinned people and differing faiths than that of white nationalistic Christianity to “keep silent,” know your place,” and don’t upset the status quo. As for the man who arrested for plotting to kill Rep. Omar, witnesses said he asked a staff member, “Do you work for the Muslim Brotherhood? Why are you working for her, she’s a fucking terrorist. I’ll put a bullet in her fucking skull.”(2)

Yet this was the exact kind of hatred and extremism which Donald Trump incited to get elected. In short, he used Birtherism, Otherness, and the bigotry of 9/11, three myths created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate and win the 2016 election. Immediately afterwards in a two-week period, there were thirty anti-Muslim incidents and at least four more mosques which were torched. Two innocent Indian engineers, thought to be Muslim, were moreover shot while having dinner. One of the engineers died, but not before his killer yelled racial slurs at him that culminated in “Get out of my country!” Sadly, the Trumpian mindset-was here to stay.

Similar to Adolf Hitler

Donald Trump’s embrace and loud propagation of the “Birtherism” conspiracy to launch his campaign proved from the start that his candidacy showed the unmistakable signs of a shameless bending of racism and reality. It incited violence and deployed demagoguery to achieve political aims. In 2011, even when President Obama released a certified copy of his long-form birth certificate, Trump still claimed victory in the disclosure. “I am really honored and I am really proud, that I was able to do something that nobody else could do” he said. Meanwhile, the damage was done. A 2016 poll showed that 72 percent of registered Republicans still had doubts.

The doubt perpetrated by Donald Trump and Fox News was what Adolf Hitler used in order to unite the Nazi Party. He too was the loudest spokesperson for a conspiracy theory in which Jews were not native citizens. Like Donald Trump, it went deeper. He too tied it to blood and nationality. Whether American or German, the question of being an “authentic” citizen was the Blood Certificate, a way to maintain a kind of racial purity and national supremacy. No wonder the man who gunned down two Indian engineers said: “Get out of my country.” Judgements on race and nationality always prevents us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.

Not Like “Us”

Another thing that prevented many from seeing the good which lied beyond mere appearances is Otherness. The election of Barack Obama as a U.S. president represented a great shift in the nation’s life and psychology, though of a different kind. Since Blacks have historically carried connotations of Otherness, by the difference of their skin color and the circumstances of their arrival on the continent and decades of forced enslavement, there’s been a persistent, systematic racism to this day. Donald Trump and his followers and Fox News just couldn’t crossover into a post-racial society, one based on equality and the character of a person instead of skin color.

Questioning the authenticity of Barack Obama’s native birth was therefore necessary. So were repeated references of his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. It was a way to delegitimize America’s first black president, or any black person for that matter. While not expressing directly an outright racist slur, Donald Trump and Fox News’ Birtherism, Islamaphobia, and Otherness was a “dog whistle,” an unmistakable call to discount a black American citizen because he aspired to the highest office in the nation. This entailed other black elected officials. It’s what drove Rep. Omar’s killer and others to want to put a bullet in the fucking skull of a Muslim Brotherhood member.

Enemies Within and Without
Donald Trump should’ve also been called out for insinuating that 9/11 proved all Muslims hated America. Knowing already that Americans had internalized the propagation of Muslim images and faces connected to this event and a series of foreign wars, and that many Americans were still traumatized over their nation’s invincibility, he still claimed that he saw “thousands and thousands of Arabs” in New Jersey cheering and celebrating the attacks. It’s an assertion he still holds to be true, using it to recover his prowess and manipulate others. The 9/11 Myth, of having Islamic enemies within and without, also made it permissible to push through policies of hatred.

It moreover made it permissible to torch mosques, bomb apartments where Muslims live, and gun down imams or Rep. Omar. You would think though that America deserved better than this, than that of Donald Trump and Fox News’ Birtherism, bigotry towards Otherness, and 9/11 Myth. The 2020 presidential election therefore can’t wait. It must start now, by challenging rationalized public policies which maintain racial segregation and cruelty, and by resisting a president who is not only untrustworthy but dangerous. Dangerous to the extent that instead of “Out of many, one”, which binds us together, into “Out of one, many.” The “one” being Donald Trump.

(Note: The latest allegations coming from the Trumpian mind-set and Fox News were that Rep. Omar denied the 9/11 hijackers were terrorists. They were also upset she had spoken to CAIR, saying that Muslims were treated as second-class citizens, starting to lose access to civil liberties, and were expected to be silent. This was followed by telling people to see her as “anti-American” and to question her loyalty as a U.S. Citizen, and a Republican group’s fundraising email branding Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a “domestic terrorist” for denouncing the attacks against her colleague. Other Muslims have been attacked and accused of harboring “dual loyalties” too.

President Trump’s latest attack against Rep. Omar was promulgating a video with jarring images of the 9/11 attacks. She, however, issued her own response by saying: “I did not run for Congress to be silent.” Adding neither did she run for Congress to sit on the sidelines, the congresswoman said she ran because she believed it was time to restore moral clarity and courage to Congress. It included “fighting and defending our democracy.” Given that the same individual who was arrested for plotting to gun down Rep. Omar said that he loved the President, and that he hated radical Muslims in our government, maybe we should start questioning Donald Trump’s loyalty.)

 

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and  www.WN.com/dallasdarling.

 
(1)   Lee, Brandy, M.D., M.Div, The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump. New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017., p. 44.
(2)   www.commondreams.org. “Trump Condemned for Sharing Video Calling Ilhan Omar ‘Dangerous Anti-Semite,’ As Jewish Allies Come to Her Defense,” by Julia Conley., April 9, 2019.



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